First Page:

THE GOD IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS

OR SEX IN RELIGION

By Eliza Burt Gamble

Author of "The Evolution of Woman"

PREFACE.

Much of the material for this volume was collected during the time that
I was preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman, or while searching
for data bearing on the subject of sex specialization. While preparing
that book for publication, it was my intention to include within it this
branch of my investigation, but wishing to obtain certain facts relative
to the foundations of religious belief and worship which were not
accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and
patience would be required in securing these facts, I decided to publish
the first part of the work, withholding for the time being that portion
of it pertaining especially to the development of the God idea.

As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas of
the unknowable reflect the inner consciousness of human beings, a
trustworthy history of the growth of religions must correspond to the
processes involved in the mental, moral, and social development of the
individual and the nation.

By means of data brought forward in these later times relative to the
growth of the God idea, it is observed that an independent chain of
evidence has been produced in support of the facts recently set forth
bearing upon the development of the two diverging lines of sexual
demarcation. In other words, it has been found that sex is the
fundamental fact not only in the operations of Nature but in the
construction of a god.

In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar
inheritance of the two sexes, female and male, is the result of the bias
given to these separate lines of development during the earliest periods
of sex differentiation; and, as this division of labor was a necessary
step in the evolutionary processes, the rate of progress depended
largely on the subsequent adjustment of these two primary elements or
forces. A comprehensive study of prehistoric records shows that in
an earlier age of existence upon the earth, at a time when woman's
influence was in the ascendancy over that of man, human energy was
directed by the altruistic characters which originated in and have been
transmitted through the female; but after the decline of woman's power,
all human institutions, customs, forms, and habits of thought are seen
to reflect the egoistic qualities acquired by the male.

Nowhere is the influence of sex more plainly manifested than in the
formulation of religious conceptions and creeds. With the rise of male
power and dominion, and the corresponding repression of the natural
female instincts, the principles which originally constituted the
God idea gradually gave place to a Deity better suited to the peculiar
bias which had been given to the male organism. An anthropomorphic god
like that of the Jews a god whose chief attributes are power and virile
might could have had its origin only under a system of masculine rule.

Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and weaknesses
of human nature; and, as the forms and habits of thought connected with
worship take a firmer hold on the mental constitution than do those
belonging to any other department of human experience, religious
conceptions should be subjected to frequent and careful examination in
order to perceive, if possible, the extent to which we are holding on to
ideas which are unsuited to existing conditions.

In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to reasonable
criticism, it would seem that the origin and growth of religion should
be investigated from beneath the surface, and that all the facts bearing
upon it should be brought forward as a contribution to our fund of
general information. As well might we hope to gain a complete knowledge
of human history by studying only the present aspect of society, as
to expect to reach reasonable conclusions respecting the prevailing
God idea by investigating the various creeds and dogmas of existing
faiths... Continue reading book >>